Graduation Year
2017
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Economics
Reader 1
Roberto Pedace
Reader 2
Thomas Kim
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2016 Julia L. Tambone
Abstract
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ran highly controversial campaigns in the 2016 Presidential Election, which then leaves us with the question of what impact is this having on the current economy? Prior analysis of political influence on the stock market tells us that isolating political impact on the stock market is nearly impossible. However, there are clearly defined 4-year cycles in stock prices that seem to correspond with election years. In this paper, I create my own index of stocks in the four major U.S. industries and measure both day-to-day and intraday volatility in stock prices across three comparable time periods: the year leading up to the 2016 election, all election years excluding the 2016, and all non-election years. I found that the 2016 election year was significantly less volatile than both prior election years as well as non-election years, suggesting that the 2015-2016 election year was not a closely contested race.
Recommended Citation
Tambone, Julia, "Are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Controlling the Stock Market? An Analysis of the 2016 Presidential Election's Impact on Stock Market Volatility" (2017). Scripps Senior Theses. 936.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/936
Included in
Econometrics Commons, Finance Commons, Political Economy Commons